The invention relates to a system for automatically stowing a swimming pool cleaner robot in a location, it being possible for the location to be a niche provided in the wall of the swimming pool, or a location in the pool itself.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 6,922,855 describes a system for stowing a suction robot in a niche provided in the wall of a swimming pool, or for taking the robot out of the niche so that it cleans the swimming pool. In that system, the suction robot is connected to a piston suitable for moving in a conduit under the effect of a water pump connected to said conduit. More precisely, that water pump is suitable for generating extra pressure in the conduit so as to push the piston, thereby deploying the robot from its niche, and for generating suction for sucking in the piston, thereby retracting the robot into its niche. During cleaning, while the robot is out of its niche, the water pump generates suction in the conduit, and the water sucked up by the robot passes through the piston and back up the above-mentioned conduit towards the pump for filtering purposes.
That system suffers from two major drawbacks.
Firstly, it is necessary to provide blocking means for blocking the piston during the cleaning stage. Otherwise the piston would also be sucked in, thereby, as explained above, causing the robot to be stowed into its niche. Such blocking means are complex to control.
Secondly, it is frequent for the water sucked up by the robot to contain dirt that is deposited in the conduit and thus hinders the movement of the piston in the conduit. Document U.S. Pat. No. 6,922,855 proposes various piston configurations for overcoming that problem, but does not prevent dirt from being deposited in the conduit.